


Doom Days

by unseenstars



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Inspired by Bastille (Band), Songfic, Sort Of, everyone's introspecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23210434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unseenstars/pseuds/unseenstars
Summary: It's a late, chaotic, everyone-wants-to-escape-their-demons kind of night.
Kudos: 4





	Doom Days

**Author's Note:**

> me, writing another songfic one-shot? SAY NO MORE.
> 
> but for real, i was listening to Doom Days and got a little inspired. here is the result. leave kudos and/or comments if you like!
> 
> disclaimer: i am not the genius behind the marvel cinematic universe, nor can i take credit for the wonderful songs that belong to Bastille. any lyrics i snuck in are theirs.

_ 12:15 AM _

Clint drives. There’s nowhere to go and nowhere to be, but he is restless and needs to move. The streets of New York are never really deserted, but they’re still quieter than usual at this time on a Tuesday night -  _ Wednesday morning _ , he can hear Natasha say with a trace of amusement.

Regardless of the day or the time, Clint just keeps driving. He’s not sure why he’s chasing after something, but he is.

_ 12:48 AM _

Tony is drunk, and alone, and that’s never a good combination. It means he gets to thinking about stuff. A lot of stuff. Stuff like how the hell did he end up here with several superheroes living in his skyscraper, and where would he be if that weren’t the case. If he were just a regular genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist. If he weren’t Iron Man.

It’s a moot point, because he’s here anyway, so he may as well take a bow.

_ 1:22 AM _

Steve inhales, allowing the chilly air to fill his lungs. He is tired. He has been up since early yesterday morning, and he needs to sleep, but that’s not the root of the exhaustion. He is tired of leading. He is tired of trying to control this extremely dysfunctional crew of heroes. He wishes he could just be carried away by life, instead of trying to carry it himself.

He shrugs on his jacket and goes for a walk. For a moment, at least, he can wander where the streets take him.

_ 2:05 AM _

Logically, Thor knows that this will not last. Jane is mortal, and he is a god. Logically, he knows that she will grow old, and he will remain both forever young and older than any human could fathom. Logically, he knows all this.

Thor knows that to ignore this is to glamorize the chaos that is so inevitable. But he chooses to ignore it anyway, for now.

_ 2:39 AM _

Wanda doesn’t want or need more bad news. Her brother is gone, the person she’d depended on for as long as she could remember. Her parents are gone too, killed before she was done needing their guidance, their love.  _ Whatever’s coming next _ , she begs the universe,  _ leave it to the morning. _

There will be time to deal with it then.

_ 3:07 AM _

Fury wonders, sometimes, how the world got to be this way. How did the human species collectively create so much potential for evil? How did it become his job to orchestrate fighting a good chunk of it? At this point, God knows what is real and what’s not - what requires his attention and the Avengers’, and what can be dealt with by others.

He needs an escape, he thinks. Preferably one without cell phones.

_ 3:28 AM _

Bucky stands by the window, looking down at the city. The nighttime views have long fascinated him. Tiny pinpricks of light stretch off as far as he can see in every direction, and car horns sing a muted symphony below him. When he doesn’t want to shut the noise and the lights out, they make for a pleasant distraction. Tonight, they are beautiful.

He wants to stretch these hours, make them last, an eternity of escape inside a single moment.

_ 4:00 AM _

Bruce is one of the calmer inhabitants of the tower this evening, but is nevertheless awake. He has not felt this at peace with the world in a long time. It is a fragile peace, to be sure, but he clings to it all the same, because at the moment, there is nowhere he’d rather be. He is among friends. Family.

It is the kind of peace one can only find at four in the morning, he muses. Better to enjoy it while it lasts.

_ 4:52 AM _

Peter wonders what it would be like to have a nuclear family. What could they have been, in another time? He’s decided the closest he’ll ever come to being Harry Potter is the Mirror of Erised. He’d see the same thing.

Peter loves Aunt May - really. But that doesn’t stop the longing from creeping back every once in a while.

_ 5:46 AM _

It takes Natasha three hours and forty-six minutes to acknowledge her wish for company. She has been wandering the streets since the last bar she was in shut down. Everyone she originally went out with has left, and now it is just her and the misty night.

The lights cut a path across the street she walks. Natasha follows the path home.

_ 8:34 AM _

They convene in the common area for breakfast today, all pulled by some unspoken need for community. They always know when the others are down, even if they don’t quite realize it. Several are hungover. Everyone is tired. But they are together.

It is eight-thirty-four in the morning, and the world still contains evil people. There’s always work to be done. But there’s a quiet undercurrent of joy in the room all the same.


End file.
